


Laughter Is The Best Medicine

by latitans



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sarah Rogers - Freeform, laughing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latitans/pseuds/latitans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky knows Steve can take care of himself, but he sure as hell isn’t doing it right now.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>Inspired by <a href="http://buckybuns.tumblr.com/post/88745281832/anthonyjcrowley-requested-creeps-on-you-8d-8d-can">this fanart by buckybuns</a>. </p>
<p>The evening of Sarah Roger's funeral, Bucky lets himself into Steve's apartment. He knows that the way to take care of Steve is to force him to take care of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughter Is The Best Medicine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nescienx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nescienx/gifts), [merlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlin/gifts).



It takes all of one look at Steve for Bucky to ask, “Have you eaten anything yet?” Bucky has let himself into the apartment and sees that Steve has managed to take of his coat and shoes before settling down on the couch with his arms wrapped around his legs, but not much else.

Steve’s scowl is answer enough. “I can take care of myself.”

"Well, you’re doing a pisspoor job of it, since you clearly haven’t left that couch since you got home."

Bucky softly curses himself when Steve’s only response is to curl tighter around himself and bury his face in his knees. He shrugs off his coat, soaked from the rain that is still pouring outside, and carefully approaches his friend. “Careful” has never been an important word in Bucky’s vocabulary, least of all when it comes to his friendship with Steve. Being around Steve has always been as natural as breathing or throwing himself into a fight. But things are different now, have been since Sarah Roger’s breathing became more laboured than her son’s during an asthma attack, since she started drowning in her own lungs. Bucky feels fear twist in his stomach and hides his hands in his pockets so he doesn’t have to feel how sweaty they are. The apartment is chilly, Steve’s sitting here in nothing but his t-shirt, and Bucky doesn’t think he could handle losing another Rogers to pneumonia.

“I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean it that way. I know you can take care of yourself.”

Steve scoffs into his knees and Bucky feels the fear turn into anger. He knows Steve can take care of himself, but he sure as hell isn’t doing it right now.

Bucky swallows hard and forces a grin on his face. “I wouldn’t mind some proof of your capabilities, though. Go grab your blankets from the bedroom and meet me back here.”

Slowly Steve gets up, moving to the bedroom without looking at Bucky. Bucky lets out a deep sigh and walks back to the front door, where at the sight of Steve curled up in a ball of misery, he’d let the bag his ma had handed to him slide to the ground. From the door it’s three steps to the kitchen. He lays out the contents of the bag on the counter: four sandwiches (two for tonight, two for tomorrow morning) and a thermos. The thermos is old and leaking too much for dad to take it to his meagre construction job, and Bucky is licking the broth off his fingers - it’s rich, and he smiles at himself because ma must have put some in the thermos before watering the rest down - when he hears Steve shuffle back into the room. The pile of blankets is almost bigger than himself. He builds a nest out of them on the couch, and Bucky realises it’s not just Steve’s blankets. Steve is also wrapping himself in his mother’s blankets, and Bucky reminds himself to thank Mrs. Williams from next door again for washing them.

Bucky pours the contents of the thermos into the only two mugs and strides over to the couch to install himself next to Steve. He hands Steve the bigger mug, the one with the ear still attached, and cocks an eyebrow when Steve starts to protest. Bucky doesn’t put his own mug to his lips until Steve has finished his, and he’s happy that Steve realises how stubborn Bucky is right now, because Steve finishes quickly enough that Bucky’s broth is still lukewarm when he drinks it.

Bucky sees some colour return to Steve’s face and decides that the sandwiches can wait. He takes off his damp shoes and socks, and nudges Steve. “Help a guy out, I’m freezing over here.”

Steve opens up the blanket nest so Bucky can join him and says, “Don’t you dare warm your toes on me.”

Bucky barks out a laugh, feels the tension that he wasn’t even aware of ease from his shoulders a bit. “Try and stop me! And anyway, you haven’t always complained about me bringing you blocks of ice. Remember that time when you were eleven and I was teaching you some boxing moves? God, you’d been on my case about it for a damn week before I caved. And ten minutes later you were on the ground with the worst black eye you’d ever had, with blood streaming out of your nose. I don’t think I’d even been so horrified.”

He chuckles, laughing more freely when Steve chuckles with him. “And I guess it must have shown, because when I brought you home to your ma, she looked at me like she knew all the nasty stuff I’d ever done, and I cracked. Told her it was me who did it to you. Didn’t even occur to me to tell her you got into another fight.”

Steve’s laughing now, and almost gasping for air when he says, “I’d never seen her so furious. I feared for your life.”

“Yeah, well, so did I,” says Bucky. “And after I ran out the door I was terrified that she’d never let me near you again. The only thing I could think of doing was running home to collect all my pocket money and get as much ice at the corner shop as I could. A whole bag, way more than one eye on one scrawny kid could ever need. When I got back to your place I had less breath in me than you during an asthma attack. Ow, don’t kick me, you punk. You know it’s true! Anyway, she accepted the ice and let me stay. But she wouldn’t smile at me until two weeks later, when I brought you home with a black eye of my own.”

Steve’s howling with laughter now. It takes him a couple of minutes to come down, and he’s wiping tears from his eyes when he does. “Yeah, but ma did give you money to run out and get some lemons as she was fussing over me. Used ‘em to make lemonade with the rest of the ice.”

Steve rests his head on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky relaxes. “Huh, I’d forgotten all about that. Must have been too terrified that she hated me.”

“Nah, she loved you. Always there to look out for me when she couldn’t.”

“And I loved her. I really did.”

Bucky repositions so he can wrap his arm around Steve, who sighs against his shoulder and sounds exhausted. When he looks down, the soft smile on Steve’s face tugs at Bucky’s heart. Steve’s eyes are closed and his lashes may be damp, but all Bucky cares about is that Steve doesn’t look completely miserable for the first time since Sarah Rogers fell ill, and that Bucky was able to make him smile like this.

“It’s okay, Stevie. You can go to sleep.”

“Thank you.”

Bucky pulls him a bit closer, plants a soft kiss on Steve’s hair, and says, “‘Til the end of the line, buddy.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> In my opinion laughter is severely under-represented as a part of mourning, so this fanart did things to me.
> 
> I image Steve would really enjoy hearing stories about his mother from Bucky. Especially the ones that illustrate that the two people most important to him were also important to each other in some way. 
> 
> I also imagine Bucky being the only who is allowed to crack jokes about Steve's physical state, and that it's a relief to both of them when he does it here. Steve feels that he's not being treated as if he's about to break, and Bucky knows Steve isn't about to break when he react in his usual way.
> 
> Since the story with the lemons takes place before the crash of '29, I'm assuming there'd have been enough money for some extras.


End file.
